


In Remembrance

by teal_bandit



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Holocaust, Remembrance Day, family trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 04:18:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17276939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teal_bandit/pseuds/teal_bandit
Summary: Luna asks her dad about the Red Skull, which sparks an explanation of her family history and struggles against bigotry.





	In Remembrance

Pietro sighed. ‘How am I going to explain this?’  
“Luna… Have I ever told you about how your grandfather and grandmother met?”

The girl shook her small head. She could see that her father was nervous about answering her question; fluorescent greens and yellows swirled around him in tandem with deep blues–a sign of grief. She had only asked because of the recent fight the Avengers and X-Men had with the Red Skull. She knew that the former reichsman had forced her father to hurt his friends, but… Something told her this was not what he was sad about.

“A long time ago, before I was even born, there was a man named Adolf Hitler. This man lived in a country that had been ravaged by war and whose people were starving and sick. This man… Told people that, with their help, he could get the country back on it’s feet and make it even better than before. But, to do that, he had the people convinced that they needed to… To be rid of certain people. People with certain religious views or ethnicities. People abiding by different cultural values or lifestyles. My parents– your grandparents– were among the people this man said to get rid of. This… Horrid person… Had the people of his country convinced that your grandparents didn’t deserve to have basic rights because of their race and religion. Or maybe the people were so desperate that they just went along with it. Anyway, this man and the people who followed him built these… Prisons for people like my mother and father and they did unspeakable things to them. Many, many of them were killed– men, women, and children alike,”  
“Your grandparents met in one of those prisons in Poland. They were barely older than you, but they became very close; they would steal whatever time and supplies they could and gave each other what they could through the fence separating the women’s camp from the men’s. After the people who survived were set free, they found each other again and eventually married.”

“Who freed them? How did they do it without getting caught by that… Hitler?”

“Eventually, Hitler became a present-enough threat that people in other countries began opposing him. One of the countries he had tried to invade sent soldiers into places like Poland to stop and force out his followers there. Those soldiers freed the survivors, and eventually stopped Hitler himself,”  
“But, just because Hitler was gone didn’t mean that people stopped believing that the same people he hated didn’t somehow deserve to be treated like dogs. The Rroma and Jewish peoples–and a lot of the other people who were targeted– have been hated for many years before Hitler. And are still facing persecution now, after his death.”

“But why? I’ve never met grandma, and I know you have a lot of hard feelings towards grandpa for some of the stuff he’s done, but why would you not like someone or want to see them hurt because of how they look or if they believe something different from you?”

Pietro shook his head, grabbing for the last of the dishes on the counter. “I’m not sure. Maybe those people are so convinced that what they believe is right that they have trouble seeing when they’re wrong. Or maybe they can’t imagine what it’s like to be looked down at for being different and so they don’t care to stop. Some people don’t even realize that they’re doing it, it’s just all they know. I remember being about your age and some young boys from a village throwing rocks at your aunt and I while a policeman stood by and did nothing. Obviously it wasn’t entirely the boy’s fault– they were likely acting on things that their parents had told them, but that officer just letting it happen was just as bad, if not worse.”

“People did stuff like that? Just because you’re Rroma?”

“Yes. And a lot of people still do it, if you speak Rromanes in front of them. Even if it’s not your race or culture, some people will still find any excuse to be cruel or complacent. Whether it’s their gender or age or who they choose to love.”

“That’s horrible… You would think that people wouldn’t want to hurt each other like that. Life hurts enough without us hurting each other.”

Pietro looked at his daughter. What was she thinking of to have said something like that? He thought hard about all the growing up she had done since the first time Crystal and he had split and mentally chastised himself for causing a large part of it.

“That’s true. But that’s also why I’m thankful that you are so mindful and caring of how others feel. The world could use more people like you,” he smiled gently at her.

Luna looked at her father again. Blue had replaced much of the yellows and greens. It worried her how often so many of her dad’s family was sad. She thought of her dad, who had just shared what had obviously been a painful part of his and his sister’s past and who had been the victim of his own poor choices as well as others over the years; of her aunts, who had lost parents or children or both and who seemed to be constantly harassed by others for the decisions they had made in grief; of her grandfather, who had inspired her to ask her father about the Red Skull and his beliefs. Her grandfather who, even though he had been through so, so much in his life–the loss of parents, child, his wife, estrangement from his children and friends, the loss of his innocence because of one man’s hatred and the complacency of others–still wanted to see the end of persecution for mutants and went to extremes that others wouldn’t to ensure it.   
They were, all of them, very sad, grief-stricken people. But they remained, in their hearts, dedicated and compassionate, and she was very proud of them, for all their faults.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dedication to all of those impacted by the Holocaust/Shoah. Remembrance Day is important, not only for those who were affected directly by the actions of the Third Reich, but for others; we need to remember the atrocities of that time so that we don't allow them to happen again.


End file.
